Where does Scooter Gennett's four-homer game rank among MLB's all-time best hitting nights?

Hitting four home runs is basically the best thing that can be done in a single baseball game and thus, really, the pinnacle of human achievement. And on Tuesday night in Cincinnati, a little-known but delightfully named MLB infielder named Scooter Gennett — the same Scooter Gennett that the Reds scooped up on waivers near the end of spring training, a guy who had never hit more than four home runs in a calendar month in his big-league career — produced one of the greatest single-game hitting performances in baseball history when he clubbed four homers including a grand slam off the woebegone Cardinals, going 5-for-5 in the contest with 10 RBI.

Scooter Gennett. Huh. Baseball: It’s so weird.

Gennett became only the 17th player in big-league history to hit four homers in a single game, the 14th player to ever drive in at least 10 runs in the game, and the sixth player in history to tally at least 17 total bases in a game. Again: Scooter Gennett.

I spent too much of this morning clicking around baseball-reference.com trying to rank the greatest single-game offensive performances in MLB history to see where Gennett’s lands. I considered games in which players did not homer as many as four times, but only briefly: Get right out if you’re trying to say you had the best offensive game ever and you didn’t even hit four homers. C’mon. Every one of the games below was a four-homer game because, again, four-homer games are the very best thing.

But first, an…

Honorable mention: Art Shamsky, Aug. 12, 1966

Art Shamsky is the one with the mustache (CBS Television Network)

Art Shamsky never hit four home runs in a game, so he’s ineligible. But I couldn’t in good conscience not mention a night he started on the bench at Crosley Field as a member of the Reds in 1966. Shamsky entered the game in the top of the 8th as part of a double-switch, then came up with a runner on and the Reds down by one run in the bottom of the inning. He homered to give the Reds the lead, but the Pirates tied it up again in the 9th to send the game to extras, then took a one-run lead in the top of the 10th. Shamsky came up in the bottom of the 10th and homered to tie the game. The Pirates scored two more in the top of the 11th, but Shamsky came up in the bottom of the inning and again hit a game-tying homer. He did not get another turn at-bat in the game, and his Reds went on to lose, 14-11, in 13 innings. But his performance ranks as the best all-time by Win Probability Added.

9. Carlos Delgado, Sept. 25, 2003

One of only two four-hit, four-homer games that will land on this list — sorry, Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays, but you’ll have to do better — Delgado earns credit for homering in all four of his plate appearances, a truly perfect day at the plate. Moreover, it was a close, back-and-forth game, and Delgado hit a couple homers that helped put the Blue Jays up early and a couple of more that tied the game later on. By WPA, it’s the second best four-homer game ever behind only that posted by Pat Seerey of the White Sox in an extra-innings game in 1948. But Seerey had the audacity to make two outs in his four-homer game, so he’s not on this list.

8. Rocky Colavito, June 10, 1959

Rocky Colavito (right) sliding in front of Yogi Berra in a different game than the one mentioned here. (AP Photo/John Lindsay)

Like Delgado, Colavito went 4-for-4 with four home runs. But he also added a walk — with Seerey, he’s one of only two players to draw a walk in his four-homer effort — and came around to score, meaning his was a four-homer, five-run night. That’s not so bad. The game in question also featured Orioles catcher Gus Triandos, later discussed at some length in The Wire.

7. Gil Hodges, Aug. 31, 1950

Gil Hodges (AP Photo/E. Ford)

Hodges’ big day mirrored Gennett’s in some ways: He also had four homers and a single, and it also came in a blowout. But Hodges’ Dodgers won even bigger than Gennett’s Reds did on Tuesday with a 19-3 drubbing of the Boston Braves. The future manager’s first homer did come off Hall of Famer Warren Spahn, but Hodges lands only at seventh on this list because he grounded out in the fourth inning.

6. “Hard-hittin'” Mark Whiten, Sept. 7, 1993

Whiten’s big day marked a formative moment in the life of this author at 12 years old, and so I want to make it perfectly clear that deeming it the sixth best offensive performance in baseball history is by no means a knock. Whiten drove in 12 runs in the game, setting a new all-time record. And though RBIs, of course, depend a lot on circumstances, the point of hitting is to try to help your team score as many runs as possible, and hitting four home runs with runners on base in the same game is a phenomenal way to go about doing that. He did foul out in the game, though. Also, two of the homers came off a September call-up named Mike Anderson in the debut performance of a big-league career that spanned only three outings and yielded an 18.56 ERA.

5. Mike Schmidt, April 17, 1976

Mike Schmidt (AP File.)

People still care about dumb stuff Mike Schmidt says because Schmidt was the best player of his era, and never better than he was in the Phillies’ wild, 10-inning, 18-16 win over the Cubs in the early part of the 1976 campaign. Schmidt’s first hit of the game, a single, game in the fourth inning with his club trailing, 12-1. But the Hall of Famer homered in the fifth, seventh and eighth innings to help engineer a comeback, then hit his fourth bomb of the night in the tenth to put the Phillies ahead for good. His performance was marred only by a first-inning flyout.

4. Scooter Gennett, like, 14 hours ago

Holy crap, did Scooter Gennett really just have the fourth best offensive night in baseball history? Seems that way, and man, was it ever awesome: Gennett was only the sixth guy to hit four home runs in a game while also making zero outs, only the sixth guy to tally as many as five hits in a four-homer game, and only the second (after Whiten) to drive in 10 or more runs in a four-homer game. Astonishing.

3. Josh Hamilton, May 8, 2012

Hamilton’s 5-for-5, four-homer game is tied for second all-time with 18 total bases, an astonishing feat. It’s only a few feet shy of ranking higher on this list, as Hamilton’s lone non-homer hit — a double — bounced off the wall. But that’s picking nits. This could really be a tie for second. Fun fact: Hamilton’s first two homers came off a pre-being-good Jake Arrieta.

2. Joe Adcock, July 31, 1954

Left from right: Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Joe Adcock. (AP Photo)

A really nice player likely kept out of the Hall of Fame only by injuries, Adcock had the night of his life in Brooklyn while hitting behind Milwaukee teammates and future Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews. In addition to his four homers, Adcock doubled off the top of the outfield wall in the third inning, missing by inches the chance to become the only player in history to homer five times in a single game. He scored five runs in the game, which gives him the ever-so-slight edge over Hamilton on this list.

1. Shawn Green, May 23, 2002

Green went 6-for-6 with four homers and a double. He set the all-time record for total bases in a game and became the first player ever to notch six hits in a four-homer game. Look at where the homers went, too: All bombs. Until someone hits five homers in a game or adds two doubles to a four-homer game, this will stand as the greatest single-game offensive performance in baseball history.

(An earlier version of this post identified Gennett as the 15th player to hit four home runs in a game. Including two players who hit four homers in games before 1900, Gennett is the 17th.)

Where does Scooter Gennett's four-homer game rank among MLB's all-time best hitting nights?

Ranking the nine greatest single-game offensive performances of all time.

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